Migration Phase 2 - FAQ ongoing

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Splinty

Shake 'em off
Admin
Dec 31, 2014
44,116
91,095
Phase 1 was a server move and upgrade a month or so ago.
Phase 2 is now complete.

What has been done?
Essentially, the site is brand new again. This is a new software from the same company that made it before. NOTHING from before works with it. Years of customizations, etc. all gone.
The entire previous site/database had to be upgraded and moved. The theme you are seeing is done again from the bottom up on the new software to have a close resemblance to the old site so everyone knows the feel. Mobile is the most obvious change. Ratings is a little different but I pulled in all the old ones and we'll thin them out and can choose modern icons now that we can support a better resolution in a format that doesn't take up all the mobile screen space. Also need to clean up some minor appearance things I'm just now thinking about.
EDIT- Oh yeah, we now support native emojis from your mobile devices.

WHY??!??!? WHY??!??!? WHY??!??!? WHY??!??!? WHY??!??!? WHY??!??!?
Splinty said:
  • Previous forum software end of life over a year ago. NO UPDATES. Increased compatibility failure with new browsers that will never get fixed.

  • PHP compatibility end of life December 2019. Inability to upgrade server. Security risk. Hacks and fight night errors galore on the horizon. Sound familiar?

  • Server RAM maxing out due to increased traffic and inability to upgrade efficiently due to no competition for old software on new hardware. Cost is high to maintain old platforms.

  • Increased server loads patched worked together. All the above and a HUGE time sink (my time sink! sorry guys, its the reality) just to maintain without failure.

You've seen the results of this in your typing in a mobile browser for instance where your text gets wonky and overwrites.
What about ratings? Live Threads? IMGUR uploads? Why'd this even happen?
All of that has been redone as well. This is months in the making. I think it is all going to be better, but I know change makes some people unhappy too. Sorry! This had to be done. We upgraded servers recently and were hitting the end of life on core tech items like PHP compatibility. Now we are set for going forward.

What's missing?
DARK THEME.
Yes I know guys. It's at the top of the list. I'll be messing with the site a little over the next week tightening up the last few things and then start working towards redoing the dark theme. Please remember this is a just a few fight fans running a site on our spare time trying to give a good product on a shoestring.
Also need to clean up a few

Why'd you have to take the entire site down for so long?
For all the stuff above. With that, the longest running was a manual migration of the previous ratings. You dudes and dudettes have given 1.9 MILLION ratings in the last few years. All those had to be mapped and a process run to bring them into a new rating system.

What I can do to help Splinty?
Just go post and enjoy it. Let me know if you find bugs and have a little patience please. I'll be on and off for the rest of the day. The big push is over for a second.
Talk about what ratings we like, which ones to dump, which new ones you might want. Better icons, etc. The old ratings was limited because on mobile you run out of screen real estate.

I want the bar of ratings back instead of the 'facebook' tooltip way. Can I have it?!?!?
Sure, for now. I admit this was beautiful on desktop. and it's ok on mobile. But it does take up a lot of mobile space and makes me manage us to an exact fixed number of ratings to keep things nice for all sized phones. When we started this site 70% of traffic was desktop. Now 70+% is mobile.
Click here to turn the bar of ratings on to try it out again. I don't plan to support that indefinitely.
TMMAC - The MMA Community Forum


What else is coming?
- Continue to minimize mobile header space
- Clean up some appearance items that are still kind of junky
- Dark Theme
- Organize ratings to easier grab
- Media Gallery to share and organize (fight?) videos from around the net
- Tweak Image Upload add-on
- Username change (????) maybe...this actually was breaking our database and caused some users to lose their posts/ratings


I can't copy image and paste image into the rich text editor like before!
This is true. Sorry. I missed this. We don't allow you to upload directly to our server and the editor has an option built in that tried to do that. When it tried to upload, it fails.

Technical Info: The imageUploadRemoteUrls should default to false · Issue #2323 · froala/wysiwyg-editor

The editor shipped only has a compressed version of the code so I can't edit it to change this behavior. I'm working on a work around and talking to the software vendor. Most websites (including this one) use an off the shelf text editor like this.

I keep getting logged out on phone or other device!
This is old session data from the site move. Clear your cache and history and it will fix it. Alternative seems to be you can change your forum account password and that should also force a new session even though the issue is the old cache data.
PM or ask for help if you don't know how to wipe your browser cache/history.


My browser sometimes says the site is not secure!
Site is more secure than ever. You can test this by opening the site in an incognito tab. It will show secure. This message is from old session data from the site move being held in your browser cache. Clear your cache and history and it will fix it. Alternative seems to be you can change your forum account password and that should also force a new session even though the issue is the old cache data.
PM or ask for help if you don't know how to wipe your browser cache/history.
 

jimmy boogaloo

General Links/Your Account
Nov 15, 2017
4,127
4,265
where's best to whine and complain about this?


seriously though, fair play to you and many thanks, must have been a real pain in the ass. plus, anyone else on here would have fucked it right up! cheers fellas, have a good one :)
 

kaladin stormblessed

Nala fanboy
Apr 24, 2017
17,627
20,132
Phase 1 was a server move and upgrade a month or so ago.
Phase 2 is now complete.

What has been done?
Essentially, the site is brand new again. This is a new software from the same company that made it before. NOTHING from before works with it. Years of customizations, etc.
The entire previous site/database had to be upgraded and moved. The theme you are seeing is done again from the bottom up on the new software to have a close resemblance to the old site so everyone knows the feel. Mobile is the most obvious change. Ratings is a little different but I pulled in all the old ones and we'll thin them out and can choose modern icons now that we can support a better resolution in a format that doesn't take up all the mobile screen space. Also need to clean up some minor appearance things I'm just now thinking about.

What about ratings? Live Threads? IMGUR uploads?
All of that has been redone as well. This is months in the making. I think it is all going to be better, but I know change makes some people unhappy too. Sorry! This had to be done. We upgraded servers recently and were hitting the end of life on core tech items like PHP compatibility. Now we are set for going forward.

What's missing?
DARK THEME.
Yes I know guys. It's at the top of the list. I'll be messing with the site a little over the next week tightening up the last few things and then start working towards redoing the dark theme. Please remember this is a just a few fight fans running a site on our spare time trying to give a good product on a shoestring.
Also need to clean up a few

Why'd you have to take the entire site down for so long?
For all the stuff above. With that, the longest running was a manual migration of the previous ratings. You dudes and dudettes have given 1.9 MILLION ratings in the last few years. All those had to be mapped and a process run to bring them into a new rating system.


What I can do to help Splinty?
Just go post and enjoy it. Let me know if you find bugs and have a little patience please. I'll be on and off for the rest of the day. The big push is over for a second.
Talk about what ratings we like, which ones to dump, which new ones you might want. Better icons, etc. The old ratings was limited because on mobile you run out of screen real estate.
props for being a badass programming doctor nerd. and for running such a stable site

apologies if this message is too bright tho, due to lack of dark mode :p
 

SongExotic2

ATM 3 CHAMPION OF THE WORLD. #FREECAIN
First 100
Jan 16, 2015
39,772
53,672
Splinty @Splinty

Quick thing I noticed. When I'm in a thread the link thingy only goes back to the current forum

Wait how do I post a fucken picture?
 

SongExotic2

ATM 3 CHAMPION OF THE WORLD. #FREECAIN
First 100
Jan 16, 2015
39,772
53,672
Anyhow if you go to the top of the thread, you will see it says site feedback and help.

Before it would be some shit like

Forums> off topic> site feedback and help.

Each one of those clickable. Makes it faster to jump about.
 

SongExotic2

ATM 3 CHAMPION OF THE WORLD. #FREECAIN
First 100
Jan 16, 2015
39,772
53,672
I'm not seeing upload image.

Where's that thing I normally do.

I take a picture, resize to small, select it from my phone, then insert it
 

SongExotic2

ATM 3 CHAMPION OF THE WORLD. #FREECAIN
First 100
Jan 16, 2015
39,772
53,672
Swear that fucken button wasn't there when I asked.
 

SongExotic2

ATM 3 CHAMPION OF THE WORLD. #FREECAIN
First 100
Jan 16, 2015
39,772
53,672


You see it? I don't know how to draw a ring around it. Before there would be a link to take me straight back to the off topic forum. Now I'm gonna have to click a bunch of stuff.

Not whining , just providing feedback.